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That's a lot of frame pieces there, Chris! And you get to do 2x the number of those end caps Pretty fun to watch you work And hey - I just read my latest Live Steam mag (yeah, I'm a few weeks behind!) and really enjoyed your first Shop Elf Corner installment on nickel plating. Great work on that too. Looking forward to reading more instalments of the shop elf corner Kim
Looks like the engine designer has a leg to stand on, now!
Very neat, as always, Chris!So, all this angled mortise & tenon joinery - is this how it was done in the original? Or is this just how you're fabricating something that was cast as a single piece?Kim
Quote from: Kim on March 31, 2021, 09:21:24 PMVery neat, as always, Chris!So, all this angled mortise & tenon joinery - is this how it was done in the original? Or is this just how you're fabricating something that was cast as a single piece?KimOn the original, the rails were hollow, and cast as one piece with the pads/tapers at the ends. Massive castings, just making and positioning the cores must have been a lot of work. Same with the base plates, those were one piece castings, according to the plans. Making the rails from one piece with the pads would have needed much larger bar stock, much wider and thicker, to get the pads and the angles shaped in - piecing it up for the model is much more practical for me. The plans are a lot of fun to look through, they have notes on common patterns that made parts for different machines, where they just moved certain add-on bits of the mold.
Quote from: crueby on March 31, 2021, 09:27:25 PMQuote from: Kim on March 31, 2021, 09:21:24 PMVery neat, as always, Chris!So, all this angled mortise & tenon joinery - is this how it was done in the original? Or is this just how you're fabricating something that was cast as a single piece?KimOn the original, the rails were hollow, and cast as one piece with the pads/tapers at the ends. Massive castings, just making and positioning the cores must have been a lot of work. Same with the base plates, those were one piece castings, according to the plans. Making the rails from one piece with the pads would have needed much larger bar stock, much wider and thicker, to get the pads and the angles shaped in - piecing it up for the model is much more practical for me. The plans are a lot of fun to look through, they have notes on common patterns that made parts for different machines, where they just moved certain add-on bits of the mold.OK, that's kinda what I thought, but then I started getting lost in the pretty joinery and just had to ask. Doesn't take anything away from the cool square-cornered mortises you're doing - that is super cool, as is the angled Tenon jig. The plans must be fascinating! It is so great that you were able to get a set of the original plans! That must have been quite the thrill to get those!Kim
For casting the original full size hollow frame cores, I would expect that many chaplets would be needed along each core to support them, both under the core and at the sides. The moulders probably used several individual cores to be able to make shorter ones, easier to lift and less prone to breakage. (and they would likely put Shaky the jittery handed moulder on pattern cleaning or counting flasks, the day they were moulding frames.) Chaplets are still available in many shapes and sizes. Link to one local firm carrying them is below. You can often see the residual imprint of one face of the chaplet where it didn't melt right into the casting if you look at big or long castings on old engines. http://smelko.com/?page_id=395